Casting Light on the Shadow: Clinical Implications of Contextualizing Racial Experience Within a Neurobiological Framework

Abstract

Neurobiological findings indicate that the right brain houses implicit relational templates that contain the individual’s earliest experiences of the social world, transmitted through the unconscious communications of caregivers. These templates have the potential to influence the sense of self, other, and world throughout the life span, often in insidious and unidentifiable ways. This article explores the implications of this for the development of racial experience and identity and for the intergenerational transmission of racial trauma, looking at how earliest experiences of identity potentially affect the clinical space, and the intersubjectivity between client and therapist.

KEYWORDS:

• neurobiology
• racial identity
• normative unconscious

Notes

1. 1. Case material referred to in this article comprises composite and heavily disguised client detail that is unidentifiable.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yvette M. Esprey

Yvette M. Esprey is a clinical psychologist (BA Hons, MA) working in private practice in Johannesburg, South Africa. She has a particular interest in the intersubjectivity of race in the clinical setting.